Aptoide, the Android app store that needs no introduction, is one of the companies that brought part of their engineering teams to meet you during Landing.career Festival. Exciting, wasn’t it? For those who may not know, Aptoide is the third largest Android App Store worldwide and with its headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal!
Aptoide is the game-changing alternative Android App Store. With over 150 Million users worldwide, 3 Billion downloads and 700.000 apps, Aptoide adds a social twist to the way you discover and install apps! It’s an innovative platform where users can build and share their personal stores, creating a whole new content discovery experience.
Very recently, Aptoide launched the new feature Spot and Share. Targeting mainly the Indian market, this feature allows for limitless app sharing — without the need for an internet connection. How? Simple: it creates a hotspot connection and Bam! You’re ready to go. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. A-m-a-z-i-n-g!
Eureka moment — where does an idea come from?
Aptoide is a global platform, it can be downloaded from any country in the world, and is now available in over 30 languages! Following Aptoide’s growth over the last year, there was a huge potential in some strategic markets like India. The Aptoide team noticed there was a problem: too many devices and countries without a proper internet connection, or a not affordable one. The solution? A way for people to be able to access other apps, or share theirs effectively, without the need for an internet connection. Now that’d be an extremely useful tool for Android mobile users, and with significant potential to Aptoide.
To get this idea off the drawing board, it was firstly incorporated into Aptoide Lite, an App Store’s version that allows one to install Android Apps in a fast way, even with low memory devices and slow Internet connections. Now, it’s available in the main Aptoide Store in Portugal and in India!
But it was no piece of cake. There were some challenges on the way they had to surpass.
Through a troubled sea
One of the major challenges Aptoide faced was the use of reflection in Java. As the name says, this is code which is able to inspect otherwise inaccessible code in the same virtual machine. According to Fred, one of the Android Developers working on this new feature, reflection is used to access private parts of the source code, which means you need to dig deep into other’s code, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. 🙂
First, you need to understand how to make things work the way you want, without a proper base code or documentation. And when finally all is working properly, the simple act of somebody (outside of the project) changing a line of code can break your logic. That’s why it’s challenging, but also very dangerous.
“Since Aptoide has a tip top Android development team, we simply did it”, says Fred.
They’re still in beta version and with major testing, but the community is actively providing feedback, which is extremely helpful for corrections and next features.
A long road ahead
Since it was founded, Aptoide had several important milestones. In 2013, it received 750.000 euros in seed funding from Portugal Ventures. In the following year, it launched a Social Timeline and, in 2015, Aptoide for TV and Aptoide Lite. In that same year, they expanded their activities abroad, opening an office in Singapore and another one in Shenzhen, China. Last year, they announced the completion of a US$4 million Series A round of financing, led by e.ventures. This round of investment will be used to accelerate growth in target markets and build strategic relationships with regional partners. They became the first European startup to successfully raise funding from Gobi Partners and Golden Gate Ventures!
But they won’t stop here. There’s much more on the way!
“We’re eager to reach more, to know more, and to enable our users. We provide the tools for them to build and share apps. We do that by acting quickly but consistently”, explains Fred.
That’s just a little taste of how Aptoide developed one of their products and also how’s their creative process, how they overcome challenges and what’s their plan for the future. At Landing.careers Festival you had the chance to learn more about their culture, to chat about routines and to clear any doubt you might’ve had.
Aptoide’s tech stack includes Java, JavaScript, AngularJS, PHP and Python and they have a team of 80+ people! Also, they’re currently looking for new people to join their team. What are you waiting for? Apply now here.
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Until next time!
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